Figure of 8 – Portfolio

Portfolio

Portfolio Management selects the most appropriate ideas & products from the strategy, and then undertakes a selection process to pick the best to deliver into service. It is at the tipping point of demand and supply and it’s customer is the vision.

Project scope and targets are delivered from a Portfolio Selection process, that filters opportunities, as it passes along a criteria filled conveyor belt. It picks the right items, in all shapes and sizes, feeding the engagement stage of the project delivery.

APPROACH

You need to build a good process and a system to:

control the whole portfolio selection,

provide portfolio reporting (planned and in flight projects)

The process oversees and controls selection, balances demand and supply to choose the scope and project target. This is a key step on the journey, planning to deliver each product at the right time, cost and quality, to deliver the right benefits, whilst managing associated risks.

As with many processes, the weakness is often at the interfaces, between different management teams.

Portfolio management is a co-ordination process, that frequently manages the strategy and provides the fulcrum between Board and Project teams.

The success of portfolio management is dependent on bringing teams together.

It removes areas of uncertainty or weakness, which undermine the whole process.

Before Portfolio Selection

Before the ideas and developing projects flow through the selection process it is vital to:

As the scope is defined each of the selected projects has a viable business case, which will be refined and baselined, before starting project engagement.

Create an approach that analyses the more detailed and complex issues, to make the selection process easier, such as:

a resourcing policy that assesses competency internally as a measure of team’s performance and feeds into an estimating model.

an approach to integration between skills, tools and approach that everyone understands

baselining metrics and a mechanism to aggregate progress against the plan and strategy (e.g earned value).

Portfolio Selection:

Understand and agree:

A selection process (including weightings against criteria) that all parties approve.

Portfolio selection operates as a structured think tank. You set up a tool that contains the ideas, outline business case and products with predefined criteria.

Available capacity and capability, budget and resultant resource

Selection criteria that will include:

profit margin, risk, safety and criteria that are less obvious, such as environmental benefit, disability impact.

Agile focused organisations, will use a simple Portfolio prioritisation selection process that will detail what we MUST, SHOULD, COULD, WONT DO (MOSCOW) do. Either way, the criteria are designed to select the right ideas at the right time. Often the criteria are weighted, usually towards the profit margin. The team will typically replay the filtering exercise that you have been through, to justify internal governance.

Project team will start to produce outline business cases that will support the project scope and Portfolio selection starts.

The Board wants reports, from the start, with timescales, risks – including views and facts on feasibility.

Identify unresolved gaps, from the capacity and capability assessment covering the next 3 to 5 years, so that peaks and troughs can be identified well in advance.

2 Action

Capacity and capability planning will measure current demand needed and supply of resources available across IT, and different business segments.

Understand any existing gap between demand and supply and compromise through prioritisation. Deciding what to leave for now is the nub of portfolio selection.

Assess the risks that need to be mitigated or accepted towards setting an appropriate contingency and project targets.

Ensure the correct investment, scope and target has been selected for each domain

Timing of the deliverables ie can service management cope with the deliverables?

In practice, for any snapshot in time, the portfolio will have many ideas, projects and programmes at different stages of maturity (in flight and planned).

PRACTICAL EXAMPLE

If a product is not meeting its KPI.

Incidents will be reported,

Problems are analysed to require a change in the product.

Change is agreed and the scope of the work included in the portfolio and prioritised.

The project to deliver the improved product into transition should improve the KPI in service.

This ensures that issues in service are addressed (through an ITIL service management approach – incident, problem, change management)

Such a cyclical loop is the foundation of project and service based businesses. The process has a self monitoring correction and improvement cycle. This is just another way of looking at the figure of 8, where KPI failures in service are reprioritised in the Portfolio and improved through new projects.

“Bob’s approach was based on building collaboration between the teams, so that there was an environment for problem solving, and a clear path to resolve conflict”

Mark HarrapProgramme DirectorSHL

“I’ve worked with Bob over the last several months in Prague, as DHL worked to set up its European Program Management portfolio and supporting processes. He is dedicated, positive and pro-active about initiating change. Bob is action-oriented, identifies areas of improvement in current business processes and takes ownership.”

Vikram Ramnath, Director of Program ManagementDHL

Bob worked with South East Coast Ambulance Service (SECAmb) for just over 9 months to September 2016. I worked closely with Bob from May to September 2016, firstly in my role as Account Manager and then as Head of PMO from August 2016.

Bob has been instrumental in supporting the Trust through a very challenging period, and led the development of the Trust’s Recovery Plan. Before I took on the Head of PMO role, Bob successfully established the core team and led the Trust in developing the use of…

SECAmb Ambulance Service

Bob is a professional and self motivated project manger. He is able to build relationships with key members of the project organisation and takes a pragmatic approach to project management in order to meet his goals and objectives. If the opportunity arose I would work with him again.

Mark SternHead of Business Intelligence Gala Coral Group

Bob is a highly experienced, versatile, manager of projects and programmes across a broad range of sectors. His deep understanding of organisational processes and project management methods has enabled his success in an impressive list of roles. He applies structural thinking to problem-solving and intuitively engages with the ‘big picture’. He is comfortable with…more
September 15, 2010, Simon was with another company when working with Bob at Hampshire Careers Network

Technical: Bob got to grips with the complex data landscape extremely quickly and in general his technical understanding is such that he can engage with all technical resources across the organisation so as to ensure that they have a common goal while being empowered to do their jobs with complete autonomy. For this reason he has gained the respect of technical team members across the organisation
Programme Management: Bobs experience across large and complex programmes in a variety of …

Dr Foster

“Significant amount of change (sensitively and effectively) and Bob managed this well. Developed his skills further, especially in stakeholder management”

John SpiersProject DirectorGlobal Oil Company

Bob was a great support when I moved into a new role. He has the ability to put any situation into context, based on his extensive previous experiences and sound theoretical knowledge base. He has an engaging style, is a good listener and I enjoyed our time working together

It was the best project that I have been involved in and what makes it great is not the technology but the people involved in it.

It was a true pleasure working with you: the team that is so grounded and the team that works together.

Today, I so fondly remember the day I got the email from resource manager that I am going to do this project. I am truly proud of being a part of this project (this is going to be a highlight of my CV); I have learnt a lot and made lifelong friends and mentors.

I…

Cloud Transformation team

“It’s been a particularly challenging week with Robert. He had so much to learn about the organisations and the NHS but he was determined to learn. He learned a lot and very fast. He challenged us all. We ended the week understanding his approach and witnessing some of his skills and knowledge. Oh and quite liking him. He clearly is a nice guy who is determined to be a success but being a success alongside us .He wants us to do an outstanding job and intends to help us achieve it. He clearly…